"Retailers that facilitate quick trips -- through high-impact displays, located in high-visibility areas and filled with items shoppers replenish frequently -- will be the most in sync with the pace of shoppers' lives and have their stores resonate as solution destinations."

That's one conclusion of Trip Management: The Next Big Thing, a shopper study released this month by packaged-goods giant Unilever.

The company has "fast and easy" displays on the brain because its study, spawned from interviews with more than 2,400 shoppers, found that 62% of all food-buying occasions now constitute "quick trips" for just a few items.

That means "major stock-up" trips, in which moms meticulously traverse every aisle to fill all pantry needs, are far less common than they once were, now accounting for just 13% of store trips.

And even those stocks ups aren't what they used to be: With average meal preparation time down to 12 minutes, even the pantry loaders are looking for help planning simple dinners. Thus, "ready-to-eat/assemble displays that draw traffic with strong lifestyle signage" will help retailers establish themselves as destinations for "speed and completeness," advises Unilever.

These findings are yet another signpost in the road to true vendor-retailer collaboration, because they suggest that a simple brand-focused display isn't going to help a store gain -- or keep -- shoppers.

And with 70% of category-level purchase decisions being made before shoppers enter the store, according to the study, it becomes even more important for a brand to establish a stronger presence than its competitors. That can be achieved by helping retailers develop displays that will create the aforementioned "solutions."

Unilever uncovered another bit of data related to product displays: Shoppers said they noticed advertised specials during 53% of all trips. Of those, 33% were noticed on displays (along with 81% at the shelf and 34% in the store circular).

So who knows? Maybe those header-blocking price signs have a silver lining after all.

For more results from the Unilever study, visit the Retail Handbook.

Peter Breen
Managing Director, Content
In-Store Marketing Institute

Product packages and displays pull double duty as both advertising message and sales tool, explaining the product succinctly to present the message and conveying the immediacy of the call to action to make the sale.

In a presentation delivered last fall at The P-O-P Show/Chicago, Jerome Kathman, CEO of brand design firm LPK, discusses how leadership brands invest significantly to hone their messages and design in an effort to stay relevant, using examples from Procter & Gamble's Folgers, Pantene, Olay Regenerist and Tampax Pearl brands.